Avoid Fight on Confirming Goss at CIA, Rep. Harman Urges Senate Democrats

The top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Sunday urged her party colleagues in the Senate not to try to block the nomination of Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) as CIA director.

Democrats should ask tough questions of Goss at Senate confirmation hearings, but “my view is this is the wrong fight,” Rep. Jane Harman of Venice said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“To get stuck in a fight about Porter Goss after tough questions are asked of Porter Goss is not where we ought to be this fall,” Harman said.

Instead, she said, the hearings should be viewed as an opportunity to fully review U.S. intelligence gathering. “I think he should be asked some tough questions in the Senate ... about his independence from the White House, about his commitment to civil rights and about, especially, his commitment to implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission,” Harman said.

The confirmation hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will begin Sept. 8, the day after Congress returns from its summer recess, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the committee chairman, said on the same news program.

Goss, 65, who was a clandestine officer with the CIA for nine years, stepped down as chairman of the House intelligence panel last week after President Bush nominated him to replace George J. Tenet as director of central intelligence.

Tenet left the CIA last month after seven years as director.

Roberts said he was “very confident” that Goss would be confirmed, despite concerns that he might be too partisan to head an agency that has been accused of bowing to administration pressure on key issues, such as the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), a member of the intelligence panel, told CNN’s “Late Edition” that Goss was not “the best person because there is a very big political aspect to that appointment.”

To win his support, Levin said, Goss must convince lawmakers that he can provide intelligence to U.S. officials that is free of political influence.

Some Democrats contend that Goss has taken overtly partisan positions, including criticizing Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee, on behalf of Bush’s reelection campaign.

Such complaints could delay the nomination through a filibuster on the Senate floor.

But many Democrats also want to avoid being viewed as obstructionist on national security, particularly in an election year.

Members of both parties returned from their summer recess last week to attend committee hearings on the findings of the Sept. 11 commission, which in late July released a scathing report on intelligence-gathering efforts prior to the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Senate leaders want to enact changes the report suggested by the first week of October.

“It is an election year, but this issue transcends politics, and terrorists do not wait,” Roberts said.

Harman urged Congress to move quickly to approve the commission’s recommendations, including the creation of a new position -- director of national intelligence -- with overall responsibility for the 15 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday” that a permanent CIA director was urgently needed.

An intelligence overhaul probably “will be subordinated for the moment” to focus on Goss’ nomination, Lugar said. “And Porter Goss is a good person to be at the president’s side.”